|
|
|
Agree and adding here when it comes to investing our emotions and biases can be our worst enemy, especially when it comes to investing. Warren Buffett once wrote: "Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ. … What's needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework."
|
|
|
|
Thanks.
I'll take a note of it. Too many friends of mine treat this as if they're playing poker.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Markets are dynamic and any strategy that works will only work as long as their are significant barriers to entry, success is achieved by those who are able to control their fear and greed and continually adapt to changing market conditions
|
|
|
|
|
|
The "smart money" and "sophisticated" set that is paid seven or eight figures on Wall Street are many of the same set that brought us CDO's, SIV's, biased ratings, and recommendations to continue buying even as the Nasdaq topped 5000 some years ago.
There's very little reason to think that an individual with some sense of what goes on around her can't make decisions more aligned with her long-term interest than falling for the hype of firms who love to pick the one product that performed well last year, and insist that people continue to buy it.
Analysts continued to hype tech stocks despite all evidence to the contrary that they were wildly overvalued. I owned stodgy things like WMT back in 2000 (and still like it). Realtors all told us that we should trade-up to a bigger house because it would further multiply our wealth in short order. Even better if we could barely afford it in the first place!
Today, our government and much of the financial community wants us to believe that inflation is under control and that we have only small concerns with the derivatives held by thousands of firms and pension funds. Nothing could be further from the truth. The long-term purchasing power of the US dollar will continue to decline, and only a small fraction of the impact of the subprime and coming credit losses have been recognized in the market. Look at the $40B+ in market value lost on GE just today... much more to come. Choose your investments wisely. Very wisely.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Suggest this webinar:
Trader Psyches - Trading and Emotions
Date: Thurs, April 17th
Time: 3:30pm Central Time (4:30pm ET)
Speaker: Denise Shull, Trader Psyches
Freud figured out a century ago that humans tend to lack awareness of what they feel. He noticed that even while someone really had no idea they had a given feeling – the feeling showed up in action. Somewhere in history someone less famous than Freud coined the phrase “actions speak louder than words” and the underlying premise is the same – our actions reveal our feelings.
So it goes in trading.
Now in 2008 research shows that those who are aware of their feelings and understand their cause actually make better decisions in the risk-reward marketplace. Who would have thought? After half of century of dominance by the rational-cognitive crowd, the very core of a rational analysis – the scientific method – provides more proof every day of the underlying role of feelings in all actions.
Hear a bit of the latest science about emotions and trading while learning a strategy to better understand yourself – and therefore derail those ever-present but unwanted and unplanned “trading behaviors.”
http://www.mirusfutures.com/futures_webinar_trader_psyches_emotions_trading.htm
|
|
|
|
|
|
The biggest mistake most retail investors make is that they are unable to discern price from value, just because an industry is hot doesn't mean that those effects arnt already baked into the price
|
|
|
|
|
|
Just because Wall street has come up with some products that no longer work doesnt mean they dont have a distinct advantage over the retail crowd. And even though CDO's hurt the economy many individual traders walked away with millions which seems pretty smart
|
|
|
|
many individual traders walked away with millions which seems pretty smart
...........
Yes, generally i agree, I would like to be one of them particularly that accomplished one from Plato quote:
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men. Plato Year of Birth: 427 BC
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
here's reading about:
Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth:
The Common Stock Investment Performance
of Individual Investors
BRAD M. BARBER and TERRANCE ODEAN*
ABSTRACT
Individual investors who hold common stocks directly pay a tremendous performance
penalty for active trading. Of 66,465 households with accounts at a large
discount broker during 1991 to 1996, those that trade most earn an annual return
of 11.4 percent, while the market returns 17.9 percent. The average household
earns an annual return of 16.4 percent, tilts its common stock investment toward
high-beta, small, value stocks, and turns over 75 percent of its portfolio annually.
Overconfidence can explain high trading levels and the resulting poor performance
of individual investors. Our central message is that trading is hazardous to your
wealth.
The investor’s chief problem—and even his worst
enemy—is likely to be himself.
Benjamin Graham
PDF
http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/odean/papers/returns/Individual_Investor_Performance_Final.pdf
|
|
|
|
|
|
Love the quote Armin and being a student at the Haas B school at Berkeley I love the link too.
|
|
|
|
Every best to you Andrew at the Haas B school at Berkeley. I love all Current Research and Published Works by Terrance Odean the Willis H. Booth Professor of Banking and Finance at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Very valuable works indeed!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It all depends on what you define as accomplishment, are you investing for wealth and security or are you investing for the challenge of being right.
|
|
|
|
|
|
I Believ the stock trading is game of instincts. If you can feel the sixth sense then you would definitely win in this game. However experince would be the best sources of judgement. Do keep urself updated and keep on imparting as much knowldge about the feild as you can. One source which helped me alot with its demos and eductaion material is http://www.sogotrade.com There may be more but this one is for sure very helpful.
|
|
|
|
|
|
it is all about market edge, if an individual or manager just copies someone elses strategy and doesnt percive the markets differently than anyone else then it is highly unlikly they will ever produce superior returns
|
|
|
|
|
|
Those who can continually out perform are few and far between, Armin is right about the research needed to evaluate who has the best chances of continuing top performance
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you're in the market for stock investing, you must have developed a disciplined system for picking what companies to invest in, and for how long. You must have an enter strategy and and exit strategy planned before you even invest your personal wealth.
Having a disciplined system is the first step in stock investing success. Attempting to buy and dump the "hot stock" of the week or based on what you "heard" from TV or a friend, or trading based on what you feel is a good decision is not a system.
If you see a stock research firm that makes recommendations, check to see if they have a consistent and disciplined system. No "sentimental" stock picking; purely fundamental, quantitative, and/or technical.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The only way to invest money is for the long haul, that way you would be upset for a short term lost
|
|
|
|
|
|
Investing should be long term but there is still a place trading for some individuals
|
|
|
|
|
|
I agree with your position. Emotions do come into play and Callan Charts show that those who chase returns tend to buy spectacular stocks and funds when their price reflects past performance. Your investment portfolio should be diversified with your retirement money in an automated plan to remove the human factor and force re-balancing that automatically buys low and sells high. This is now my career path. If however you are stock picking for the challenge with excess funds then the euphoria of being right is the reward and the agony of being wrong is the risk. Your long term investing should be focused around an automated plan and speculate with short term funds.
|
|
|
|
In fact, my strategy here at SP is kind of automated plan, selecting daily one or two quality stocks which match one or all criteria like above average growth, ROE etc and holding them for an indefinite period of time, expecting to be right just 60% or less, placing orders before markets open and attempting not to time the market at all, regardless the markets might be in bull or bear cycle. This is one of the recipes about how to remove emotions and other human factors as you have pointed out in your post. It's also about building up your psychological capital over the time which is equally important asset like financial, when it comes to stock market investing.
Of course there are other strategies about "how". Tell us your story!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Armin if your entering orders daily based on parameters then aren't you market timing?
or maybe I am misunderstanding.
|
|
|
|
Good question Andrew, thanks!
Here's the sum of my strategy here at SP:
Otherwise I run multiple virtual portfolios as well as real one.
I count on my selection, and select stocks based on parameters like:
Sales Growth,
Operating Margin Growth
Earnings Growth
Earnings Momentum
Earnings Surprises
Analyst Earnings Revisions
Cash Flow
Return On Equity
Of course not all stocks have good numbers, so I try
to select one or two daily, that match criteria and would like to pick for my long portfolio, hold for indefinite period of time placing equal amount of capital in every single one, in case I upgrade I'll add again same amount or number of shares. I understand this site is not very accurate in tracking but I can track win/loss ratio as well as percentage gain/loss of my picks. I don't take any short position, longs only. I've decided to place 1 or 2 orders daily. before markets open so to have very high probability in making mistakes and in same time not thinking about any market timing. If you imagine my strategy like an investment plan which will run through the time regardless when started than you note that such approach can just work against any market timing.
Over all, I'm finding inspiration also from following article:
Terrance Odean and Brad Barber. This article first appeared in Bloomberg Personal Finance, May 2000.
http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/odean/papers/Bloomberg/BloombergArticle.htm
Note what does it mean to investor being underdiversfy, for example. There are of course other classic books on stock market investing which might help in creating long term strategy. Btw-when I trade or day trade futures approach is somewhat different.
Actually, today I took one day off, and could just follow via mobile phone how Wall Street shakes and Dow sinks 300 points. Albeit, seems favorable time to add some beaten down stock I'll continue to pick stocks next Monday and stick to my long term strategy creating resilient low risk portfolio and track its performance, hopefully beating S&P index, if anything. Many times, the stock market is a probability game and very tricky if you don't see a broader picture or understand its nature. I'm still not sure I do, but long term track records and performance will show whether I have been wright or not.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Armin do you use any filters for the strategy or is it mainly stocks you come across that fit these parameters
|
|
|
|
|
|
Traderdrew,
Here at SP, I really want to make very quick decision about which stock to pick, sometimes it seems like a random choice, but generally the stock has to show above average numbers as to parameters mentioned in my previous post. For example I would look for net margins of at least 15% or return of equity of at least 15% for each of the past three years and the most recently reported quarter as well as steady earnings growth. In sum, key fundamentals are the key. Not any particular filter but I have my method of rating every single pick. I spend more time in research managing various portfolios at Marketocracy.
http://www.marketocracy.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Portfolio.woa/ps/ManagerPublicPage/login=astuk
There are two things I would like to test here in the long run: That you can outperform the market if holding diversified portfolio and you can make money being right bellow 60%
In fact, portfolio performance to date(4 months period) shows +5 or so percent, with 90 winning picks out of 150.
There is yet another interesting statistics I can get here whether buy and hold strategy actually works. In fact I don't sell here, what I actually do at M, usually selling losers first or doing necessary rebalancing in the portfolio. Somewhat more engaging work over there.
For example: my today's stock selection is MON, because of its numbers and interestingly MON is my top holding in Materials Fund: Days held: 1865, Inception return: 1264%
what shows me that holding quality stocks make sense. Of course there are not only winners in my portfolios. Portfolio management is a key here.
Here's Materials sector virtual fund(5 years of track records)
http://www.marketocracy.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Portfolio.woa/ps/FundPublicPage/source=KpLdAdGeDoLcEmCjMaKiAbDc
|
|
|
|
|
|
People have a hard time knowing what they don't know and sticking to their knitting. It's best to build a knowledge of a couple of industries and know them front and back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
@ walter, you could also move to something like currency trading where you one need to follow a few large economies
|
|
|
|
|
|
Or you could concentrate of a small number of stocks across many industries which may allow for more opportunity while still being able to closely follow the securities you invest in
|
|
|
